Sunday, November 03, 2019


Very weak, again.

I heard from Helen this morning that her husband’s arrhythmia (hey! the spell-check let it through!) has stopped. He will probably get out of hospital today, and go back for tests tomorrow. This happened while she was still in Edinburgh, but she is on her way to Thessaloniki anyway. Or maybe she's there by now.

I made good progress on the Dathan hap during the Andrew Marr show this morning, plus a bit of Montalbano. I don’t know how to judge progress. I have more than 250 stitches now – but that doesn’t mean that when I reach 300, I will be halfway there as (obviously) the distance between increases gets longer and longer as the rows themselves stretch out.

Non-knit

The new New Yorker (Nov 4) promises in the table of contents to tell us “how Brexit will end”. The article is good, but at the end I know no more than I did before I started reading it. I suppose they mean that they think that Boris Johnson’s “deal” will get through. Perhaps – but it’s by no means certain.

Then there is a long article about old age, towards the end. I didn’t learn anything from that, either. The author is a mere boy, somewhere in his 70’s.

On the other hand, there is the best Cat Joke I have seen in quite a while, on page 70. I laughed out loud.

Shandy, I find that quite a lot of The Chronicles of Barsetshire have escaped my memory altogether, but I have retained a fair amount of The Last Chronicle because of not understanding how the finances worked, behind that cheque. We’ll see if it’s any clearer this time.

I’m better than half-way through the new Le Carre. It seems a bit stilted, and dated, but it’s hotting up somewhat and I think I’ll be able to persevere.

I made myself a restorative vegetable soup this morning, largely celeriac. Now I’ll go have some more of it.

5 comments:

  1. I made a pot roast yesterday, and as I ate it, feeling it lacked something, I thought I must be the 16 pound a year cook, rather than the 60. I reupped my New Yorker in digital only, I'll see if I regret not having the magazine piling up, causing nagging guilt and larger stacks of "to be read." Glad to hear your son in law is doing better.

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  2. Thanks to someone here, I am now well into The Vanishing Fleece. I will never again regret the price of a good skein of yarn! The work that goes into raising a flock of sheep and then the effort and work of getting to the finished yarn is amazing. The writing is not literature, but it is an excellent description and story of the "bale" of wool the author was given. It is also quite amusing.
    Glad to hear that Helen's husband is ok and that you are progressing well with the knitting Jean. I will have to look for the cat joke.

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  3. =Tamar5:46 PM

    When it comes to cooking, I'm the upstairs maid trying to fill in when the cook leaves in a huff.
    A thought: are you getting enough protein? Vitamin B is important.
    I'm glad to hear the Dathan is coming along well.

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  4. I second the protein comment; my god-mother, well into her 90s and living alone, prefers minced or puree food. I wondered about baby or toddler meals, but research says that older people need more protein and fewer carbs than babies. She also likes stronger flavours than than frozen meals you can get delivered. We have made slow cook lamb with wine and garlic and everything and pureed and frozen it into portions with potato and veg. We shall see how that goes down.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks. This is interesting and helpful. I have almost entirely lost the sense of smell, which must be affecting the sense of taste -- I, too, like stronger flavours. I still don't need it pureed, but that will come (if I'm lucky).

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